The hospital workers did not follow strict protocol when taking blood from a hantavirus patient evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship last week, the medical centre said in a statement.
Twelve Dutch hospital workers at the Radboudumc university medical centre in Nijmegen have been placed in precautionary quarantine after following an incorrect procedure with a hantavirus patient, the hospital said in a statement on Monday night.
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The patient was taken to the hospital on 7 May after being evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship. When taking the patient's blood, a standard procedure was followed, rather than a stricter protocol required due to the "nature of the virus."
The hospital also said that the most recent international regulations were not followed when disposing of the patient's urine.
The hospital workers will be in preventive quarantine for six weeks, "even though the risk of infection is low," the hospital said. The hantavirus patient is also in quarantine.
"We regret that this has happened at our university medical center. We will carefully investigate the course of events to learn from this and to prevent it from happening in the future," said Bertine Lahuis, Chair of the Executive Board of Radboudumc.
The MV Hondius cruise ship began its journey back to the Netherlands on Tuesday after its last passengers disembarked as part of a large-scale evacuation operation that began on Sunday.
The final cohort of 28 evacuees travelled on chartered buses to Tenerife South Airport and boarded two flights that landed in the Netherlands early on Tuesday.
One plane carried mostly crew members: 17 Filipinos, a Dutch national and a German, as well as a British doctor and two epidemiologists.
Wearing facemasks, the evacuees disembarked from the air ambulance clutching white bags of their belongings and walked into Eindhoven airport's terminal.
At least seven evacuees have tested positive for hantavirus and an eighth is listed as "probable," according to the World Health Organisation.
Three people died after the rare virus that usually spreads among rodents was detected on board the MV Hondius, sparking a global health scare.
No vaccines or specific treatments exist for the virus, but health officials have said the risk to the public is low and dismissed comparisons to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Dutch-flagged ship was expected to arrive in Rotterdam on Sunday evening, according to its operator, where it will undergo disinfection procedures.
